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Things like this are happening a lot.  Just after leaving Muscle Shoals, we see that a documentary is being released today about the famous music studio and the area. The New York Times is not so fond of it (http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/movies/muscle-shoals-directed-by-greg-camalier.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0) but Entertainment Weekly loved it. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/09/26/muscle-shoals-aretha-franklin-video/ Spooky….

Today had a definite theme. We started out in the middle of the woods somewhere in Tennessee at the Coon Dog Cemetery. Yes, we were privileged to see the one and only place in the world where coon dogs are properly honored. This was a touching site, and we had it all to ourselves.

Lots of stimulation today in Alabama!  Let’s start with the birthplace of Jesse Owens, the fastest man alive for many years, and the guy who really upset Hitler at the 1936 Olympics.  He started out as a sickly child in Oakville, Alabama, the 10th child of a sharecropper family.  He never actually used walking asContinue reading “Running, hearing, touching and seeing”

That Don is amazing – planning our adventures and our path with such creativity.  We began our day in Scottsboro, Alabama.  Home to the sad story of the Scottsboro Boys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsboro_Boys), this is a sad little town.

We were in the foothills of the Appalachians the other day, and had the thrill of seeing the start of the Appalachian trail.  Now wouldn’t that be a trip – walking from Georgia to Maine?  I would do it, of course, except for the lack of hair dryers along the trail.  (Please don’t write andContinue reading “The trail of gold and tears”

Not all art exhibits come in fancy buildings.  Yesterday we toured the home grounds of primitive artist Howard Finster, known as Paradise Gardens. 

What a day for tourism.  We had lunch in Helen, Georgia.  Now, if you were a Georgia mill town slowly dying, would it occur to you that remaking the entire town into a Bavarian village would put you on the tourist map?  Well, if it did, you would be correct. 

Oh come on, you know how crazy Don and I are for college football.  Well, it’s in the water here in Athens, Georgia, home of football-crazy University of Georgia.  Lovely town and a beautiful school.

We started our day in Madison, a Georgia town that Sherman spared.  There are several versions of why.  One, his college roommate, who lived there, asked him to spare the town,  Two, he was having an affair with the roommate’s sister, who also lived there and he extended her that courtesy.  Which one works forContinue reading “The Antebellum Trail”

Today was a busy one, spanning thousands of years of history.  We started at the Ocmulgee National Monument, which contains Indian mounds and relics of Native American habitation from over 17,000 years ago.  Thanks to our guy FDR, the area was properly secured and documented by the WPA/CCC in the 30’s.